1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for recording on a recording medium and a method for controlling the recording process. More particularly, the present invention relates to a recording apparatus for recording on a recording medium under control based on the data signal level, and a method for controlling the recording process.
2. Background of the Invention
An optical disc may have a recording capacity two to three orders of magnitude larger than a magneto-optical disc, and permits higher speed access than with a tape-shaped recording medium. Since the optical disc also has such merits as high durability and contact-free data recording/reproduction, it has recently being employed in increasing numbers.
There are several types of optical discs, such as a read-only optical disc having a read-only area with data recorded as pits, conforming to a standard CD (Compact Disc) format, referred to hereinafter as a CD-DA format, a magneto-optical disc, in the form of a magneto-optical recording medium having a recording/reproducing area conforming to a CD-MO format as an extension format of the CD-DA format, and a hybrid disc having both the read-only area with data recorded as pits and a recording/reproducing area having a magneto-optical recording layer in which the data is recorded on or reproduced from the magneto-optical recording layer.
If, in a data recording/reproducing apparatus for recording data on a disc-shaped recording medium, such as a magneto-optical disc or a hybrid disc, the recording data become useless data during recording, the recording is discontinued by a manual operation. If a song or other audio program are to be recorded from a CD to a magneto-optical disc, the recording by the magneto-optical disc recording/reproducing apparatus is discontinued by a manual operation after the end of reproduction by the CD player.
In a disc-shaped recording medium, such as an optical disc or a magneto-optical disc, there are provided a main data recording area for recording main data, such as audio data or speech data or general data, and a control data recording area for recording control data.
In the data recording/reproducing apparatus for the disc-shaped recording medium, the pre-recorded area and the non-recorded recordable area are controlled by control data recorded in the control data recording area. For example, in the optical disc conforming to the CD-DA format, the recording start address information and the recording end address information are sequentially recorded for all of the program data in a lead-in region as a table-of-contents (TOC) information indicating the recording position and the recording contents of the data region.
The present Assignee has already proposed a recording and/or reproducing apparatus for digitally recording and/or reproducing audio signals or music signals or the like using an optical disc of substantially 64 mm in diameter housed within a disc cartridge. This type of the optical disc may be classified into a read-only optical disc, a recordable disc such as a magneto-optical disc and a hybrid disc having both the read-only region and the recordable region. In the magneto-optical disc capable of data recording and reproduction, the program region and the U-TOC region (user TOC region) are provided in the recordable region, and the TOC data indicating the recording position and the recording contents of the program region, referred to herein as U-TOC data, are recorded in the U-TOC region.
With such disc recording/reproducing apparatus, the recording is discontinued by a manual operation. As a result, if only songs or programs, such as audio or music data are, designated using the program reproduction function of the CD player to be recorded, and a song or program smaller in data quantity than the capacity of the recording side is reproduced, a silent recorded portion, such as a portion recorded zero-level audio data, is produced on the end after the end of the reproduction on the source side. In order to prevent the silent portion from being recorded on end, it is necessary to watch the state of the source and to terminate recording as soon as the reproduction of the source side comes to a close.
On the other hand, if recording is not discontinued by a manual operation, the silent portion continues to be recorded up to the end of the recordable region, such that, unless the silent portion is re-registered as a vacant region, recording cannot be made in succession to the recorded portion.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for recording on a recording medium which resolves the above-mentioned problems.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for recording control on a recording medium which resolves the above-mentioned problems.
According to the present invention, there is provided a recording apparatus for recording data on a recording medium having a data recording region for recording data and a control data region for recording control data for the data recording region. The apparatus includes a time measurement unit which measures the time during which the signal level of data recorded in the data recording region is below a pre-set level, and recording controller discontinues data recording on the recording medium when the time measured by the time measurement unit exceeds a pre-set time duration, and recording control data in the control data region for separating portions of the data recorded in the data recording region beginning from a time point preceding a pre-set time from the end of the data recorded in the data recording region up to the end of the recorded data as being another data.
According to the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for recording on a recording medium having address data pre-recorded thereon and also having a data recording region for recording data based upon the address data and a control data region for recording control data for the data recording region. The apparatus includes a storage unit and a recording controller. The storage unit stores an address when the signal level of the data recorded in the data recording region becomes lower than a pre-set level. The recording controller records control data in the central region for separating data downstream of the address stored in the storage unit as other data, based upon the address data stored in the storage unit after recording of the data in the data recording region has ended.
According to the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for recording on a recording medium having a data recording region for recording data and a control data region for recording control data for said data recording region. The apparatus includes a time measurement unit and a recording controller. The time measurement unit measures the time during which the signal level of data recorded in the data recording region is below a pre-set level. The recording controller discontinues data recording on the recording medium when the time measured by the time measurement unit exceeds a pre-set time duration and records control data in the control data region for separating data recorded in the data recording region into at least two data portions on either side of the time when a pre-set time has elapsed since a time point at which the data level has become lower than the pre-set level.
According to the present invention, there is provided a recording method for recording data on a recording medium having a data recording region for recording data and a control data region for recording control data for the data recording region. The method includes identifying a non-silent recorded portion and a silent recorded portion of the data recorded in the data recording region based upon the signal level of the data recorded in the data recording region, and recording control data in the central data region for separating the data recorded in the data recording region into temporally former and temporally latter portions at a boundary portion between the non-silent recorded portion and the silent recorded portion based upon the results of the identification after recording of the data in the data recording region has ended.
According to the present invention, the recording operation is automatically discontinued at a time point when a pre-set time has elapsed since the time when the data signal level has become lower than a pre-set level, on the basis of the signal level of data recorded in the data recording region of the recording medium, and control data is recorded in the control data region so that data recorded in the data recording region from the time the data signal level has become lower than the pre-set level will be separated as another data. This enables data recording on the recording medium to be discontinued, while enabling the data recording region on the recording medium to be utilized effectively.
According to the present invention, address data is stared at a time point where the data signal level has become lower than a pre-set level on the basis of the signal level of data recorded in the data recording region of the recording medium having pre-recorded address data thereon and control data is recorded after the end of recording on the recording medium on the basis of the stored address data so that data recorded in the data recording region from the stored address data may be taken as another data. This enables the data recording region of the recording medium to be utilized effectively, while enabling data recorded in the data recording region to be separated into the non-silent data portion and the silent data portion automatically.